Longer Laptop Battery life?

7 posts in this topic

I recently got Ubuntu 8.10, and removed Windows from my laptop, everything is running well, but I seem to have only an hour 30 battery life on it. In windows I had atleast three hours, I've tried disabling certain services I don't require, and the like, to no avail. The laptop is also fairly new, I'm not sure about any solutions, is this a generic problem people are going through? Or is it time to get another battery, being as I'm constantly on the move, it'll be a bit tedious if I require it, and it's not there for me

Please help!1.

0

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The major issue with battery support in linux is the fact that most distros don't properly setup ACPI or laptopmode. Laptop mode will buffer disk writes and packet transmission to minimize the number of them being done in an attempt to stop the platters from constantly spinning up and down as well as some other optimizations in the kernel. With proper ACPI support you can enable cpu frequency scaling (dynamic is usually the best way to go when unplugged). This will allow the kernel to scale down the speed of the cpu causing less power to be required. Another major issue with battery power comes from powerful video cards and running software which demands powerful video cards. Running 3d apps and 3d accelerated desktops will require more power to run the video card. Lastly you should look into the wifi card being used. Cards where all the radio work is done in software (eg. Atheros) will use much more power because they are not optimized and don't have dedicated hardware that is low power to handle transmission and reception. Instead the CPU is used which just puts more load on the cpu requiring more power for a much more general processor to do the work.

Share on other sites

No, it's not OK. Had you taken three minutes to read the rules, you would have known that. The software is not yours to redistribute, you cannot link to it on these forums. Instead, you can link to the software like this. It's also useless to oddflux, as he clearly states in the first sentence of his post that he's running Linux.

Also, installing programs like this from an unknown source (a forum user who's unknown to everyone here and just joined today posting a random rapidshare link is an unknown source) is not a bright thing to do. Hope anyone who downloaded this enjoys their trojans and/or malware.

0

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The battery life on modern devices can be effected by so many things, even a small difference can result in a significant cut in runtime. Since the windows install is likely device specific (tailored with drivers written by device manufacture's) it may be hard to match the performance.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I had a similar problem recently. I just got a new laptop(new to me). Soon after I got it I installed Ubuntu. Ever since I installed Ubuntu, my battery has stopped holding a charge. Could there be any connection? I am thinking that the battery could be bad but I think it is strange that it worked fine up until I installed Ubuntu.

0

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I recently got Ubuntu 8.10, and removed Windows from my laptop, everything is running well, but I seem to have only an hour 30 battery life on it. In windows I had atleast three hours, I've tried disabling certain services I don't require, and the like, to no avail. The laptop is also fairly new, I'm not sure about any solutions, is this a generic problem people are going through? Or is it time to get another battery, being as I'm constantly on the move, it'll be a bit tedious if I require it, and it's not there for me